Planting the Seeds for Gardening Without Pain: Yoga for Gardening

Calling all green thumbs! Do you think about lifting techniques when you garden? Protecting your spine is critical in every season of your life. Yoga can be very useful for gardening.

Dawn Cox, physical therapist, created a fabulous resource highlighting proper body mechanics to use while shopping at your local gardening supply store.

Warm up with yoga before gardening

Proper body mechanics don’t end at the store. Before you begin weeding, planting, or watering, spend 5–10 minutes on a gentle yoga warm-up.

Move the spine in all directions: Cat/Cow, Child’s Pose, Thread the Needle, and Sphinx. Spend time in the pose that your body needs the most. Be sure to warm up your hands and forearms by circling the wrists in both directions.

Cat pose gives you a stretch into spinal flexion.

Cow pose offers a stretch into spinal extension.

Thread the Needle pose will prepare the spine for rotation movements like weeding.

Sphinx offers a gentle backbend to offset the forward flexion often involved in gardening.

Take a break from gardening

Take frequent breaks while weeding and practice standing chest openers:

Once you finish your work for the day, treat yourself to 5–10 minutes in Restorative Fish pose. Your thoracic spine will extend, your chest wall will release, and your body will thank you for taking such great care of it.